Just Another Case of History Repeating
by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: While using the Dimension Cannon, Rose finds a familiar blue box standing on an empty Scottish moor. Nine/Rose, TenII/Rose.
1. Part One

**Title:** Just Another Case of History Repeating

**Author:** TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel

**Story Summary:** _While using the Dimension Cannon, Rose finds a familiar blue box standing on an empty Scottish moor. _

**Setting:** Before 'Turn Left' and 'The Stolen Earth', series four.

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**PART ONE OF FOUR**

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It was a quiet, peaceful day. The sky was mildly overcast, the sunlight struggling weakly through to the earth below. The wind blew, sharp and cold. There was no human around for miles.

The quiet was broken by a strange, semi-mechanical groaning sound and a flash of light, and when it stopped a young woman in a blue leather jacket stood there, her hair flowing loose in the wind.

She looked around, taking in the rolling empty moors stretching out as far as she could see, the heather growing wild and strong like a deep purple carpet. In the distance she could just make out what looked like a sheep, chewing on a clump of grass. It looked like…

"Scotland?" Rose Tyler asked aloud, frowning to herself. She'd been in Scotland a few times, but this was the first time the Dimension Cannon project had dumped her in the middle of a Scottish moor.

"Well, that's fantastic," she muttered to herself, a little disgruntled. "Still, might as well take a quick look around, make sure there's nothing here." She paused to consider her own words. "Right, I'm talking to myself. Slowly going mad, here."

Shaking her head, Rose began to walk across the moors.

She'd been walking for perhaps fifteen minutes when she crested a small hill. She glanced down, and her eyes widened in shock.

At the bottom of the hill the heather abruptly gave way to a patch of land that was blackened and charred. There was a small shallow crater in front of her, approximately fifteen metres or so across, and from the looks of it everything in the crater had burned. The ground was charcoal, suggesting that fire had burned here briefly but at a great heat.

What really held Rose's attention, though, was the battered looking police public call box sitting in the middle of the crater.

Rose realised that at some point she must have started running, but the realisation only made her move faster as she scrabbled her way down the hill, tripping slightly as her ankle caught in a tangle of plant roots. Rose cursed, hopping slightly to keep her balance as she kicked her foot free.

Rose turned and continued back down the hill, more slowly this time. Up until this point her eyes had been fixed firmly on the blue box to the exclusion of everything else, but now she took a closer look at her surroundings, and her breath caught a little as she realised for the first time that there was a huddle of something half-buried in the heather just beyond the crater.

Cautiously Rose made her way closer. It was a person, curled in the foetal position. Rose could make out dirty green velvet and an ear, sticking out from the curve of the back of the person's head.

As she closed the distance between them Rose realised that actually the ear was rather familiar, with a distinctive shape, and by the time she reached the unconscious figure a moment later her heart was pounding so hard that it felt almost as though it would burst out of her chest. Rose dropped to her knees by the unconscious man and gently rolled him over, exposing an angular face with a large nose, big ears, a straight mouth, and a tall forehead. His hair was brownish, and close-cropped.

Rose fought to breathe.

For a moment she thought that she was about to pass out, and there'd be two unconscious people lying in the heather, but suddenly her breathe came in great gasps, and her fit of light-headedness passed.

Rose took a deep, slow breath, trying to calm down, and began checking her first Doctor for injuries. He didn't seem to have any as far as she could see, but his pulse was faster than she liked and his skin was clammy even for him.

Rose had no idea how long he'd been lying there before she came along; for all she knew, he could have been lying out in the cold for days, and she wouldn't be surprised if turned out to be sick.

With a sigh, part of her unable to believe that she was dealing with this Doctor again so long after she'd accepted she'd never see him again, Rose prepared to lift the Doctor onto her shoulder so that she could try to half-carry him to the TARDIS.

Tucking the green coat around him more securely, she frowned at his outfit; dirty green velvet frock coat, delicately-patterned golden-khaki waistcoat fraying at the edges, a pair of breeches as dirty as the coat, and a tattered pair of men's leather dress shoes.

It was nothing like the leather jacket-jumper-trousers-boots combo she was used to seeing on him, and it didn't quite make sense.

At the corners of her mind, little trickling bits of information were beginning to gather together, as though she ought to know the answer to the mystery. It hadn't quite formed in her conscious mind yet, though.

Just as Rose began to lift the Doctor up there was a sudden glimmer of gold beneath his skin, making her start. She's seen that before, in her second Doctor, when he was recovering from regeneration. An instant later and the glimmer was gone again, but it was enough for her to put the pieces together.

"Oh my God," Rose breathed in aghast, horrified wonder, staring at the familiar Doctor with new eyes. "I bet you've just come out of the Time War, haven't you?"

There was another flicker of gold beneath his skin, fainter this time. Rose kicked her brain into gear yet again, and this time hauled the Doctor onto one shoulder, grappling with his tall, muscular form.

"God, you're heavy," Rose groaned, trying not to collapse under his weight or drop him. Neither would be good. "You been lining your pockets with bricks, or something?"

Rose slowly made her way across to the TARDIS, bringing the Doctor with her. The charcoal crackled under feet. Twice she had to lower the Doctor to the ground for a moment, making his clothes even more filthy, but after several strained minutes Rose was standing in front of the TARDIS.

If the circumstances had been different, Rose probably would have just stood there and stared at it for a few minutes, marvelling, but she had an ill Doctor to take care of and she needed to get him inside as soon as possible, so instead Rose fished under the neck of her shirt for the chain that held her TARDIS key, lifted the chain over her head, and stuck the key in the lock.

It stuck a little, but turned.

Rose pushed open the door to see that the inside of the TARDIS was dark, and looked as though an explosion had hit it. Debris was scattered across the room, and part of the TARDIS console was missing. Another part of the console looked as though it had been on fire at some point.

Rose gaped in dismay, but dragged the Doctor inside all the same. She laid him out on the floor, very carefully, before picking her way across the room towards the console.

Normally Rose could feel the TARDIS in her head, like a quiet sea of awareness, but right now her head felt empty, silent.

"What happened to you?" Rose murmured sadly, and patted one of the panels gently.

The moment her hand came in contact with the metal, there was a flash of something in her head, like a breath of song, and a searing warmth.

Rose staggered as though she'd been struck, but the TARDIS lights began to glow dimly red, and there was a sudden jolt in her mind.

For a moment Rose stood there feeling confused and dizzy, not at all sure what was going on, but the backup TARDIS systems were turning themselves on, and there was a faint, pained presence in her mind that hadn't been there before.

Somewhere, a great bell began tolling, as though from very far away.

Rose couldn't help the grin that broke out over her face as she realised that the TARDIS was still hanging on, somehow. She laid her palm flat against the panel again, closing her eyes and willing the TARDIS to find strength.

From the bottom of Rose's mind something stirred, vaguely, and began to drift upwards. Rose let it, clearing her mind of everything but her desire for the TARDIS and the Doctor to be healthy and safe. Song swelled into being, growing stronger as it curled through her mind until Rose could almost hear it in her ears, drowning out every other sound, flowing with her heartbeat and the rate of airflow in her lungs, golden and bright and beautiful.

Just when Rose thought she couldn't stand it any more, the song quietened down, gentling itself until it was only a current at the bottom of her mind, wisps of it occasionally drifting upwards until she could almost hear it, but dispersing before she could grasp more than a fleeting impression of the song's nature.

When Rose opened her eyes again, all of the lights in the console room were on. They weren't very bright, and they were still red, but all the TARDIS systems seemed to be online again and when Rose glanced over at the console she found that it was repaired and whole.

The bell still tolled, loudly now, and Rose was pretty certain that could get annoying quickly, but it'd all do for now.

"I'm glad you're alright," Rose told the TARDIS gratefully. For some reason she felt tired, as though she'd done a lot more than simply carry the Doctor a few metres. "Listen, don't s'pose you've got a stretcher, or something, around, do you? So that I can take him to the med bay? Coz he's a bit heavy for me to get him in there on my own."

Hoping that the TARDIS was listening, and able to help, Rose walked into the hallway and opened the first door she saw there. It turned out to be some sort of storeroom, filled with medical supplies, including a stretcher.

"Thanks, girl," Rose said aloud, and rolled the stretcher back into the console room. It took her a few minutes to work out how to lower the thing so that she could lift the Doctor onto it, but eventually she had him settled on it, and was able to push the stretcher back into the hallway to the door marked with a squiggly mauve symbol that even as Rose watched rearranged itself into the word 'MEDICAL.'

Rose opened the door and pushed the Doctor through into the room, hoping that she knew and remembered enough about how the medical equipment worked to help him.

She ran her eyes over the half-remembered objects, before picking up what she knew to be a medical scanner.

"Let's hope this works," she muttered, half to the Doctor, half to herself.

Switching it on, she ran in over the Doctor, listening to the beeps and soft whistles it made before squinting at the display.

Again, the lines of symbols rearranged themselves in front of her eyes until she could read them in English.

Rose read through the results carefully, before sighing in relief.

"Post-regeneration sickness," she announced to the Doctor, unable to help her relieved smile. "Well, I've dealt with that once, shouldn't be too hard to look after you again. Bit of bed rest and tea and stuff should do it."

Rose frowned as she looked again at the Doctor's dirty clothes and the smudges of dirt and charcoal against his skin, and frowned consideringly.

"First, though; think you need a bath."

END PART ONE


	2. Part Two

**Title:** Just Another Case of History Repeating

**Author:** TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel

**Story Summary:** _While using the Dimension Cannon, Rose finds a familiar blue box standing on an empty Scottish moor. _

**Setting:** Before 'Turn Left' and 'The Stolen Earth', series four.

**Author note:** _This is way more… well, Bad Wolfy than I had originally intended. Ah well, it works._

_Why is ffnet removing my formatting, and paragraph breaks?_

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**PART TWO OF FIVE**

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The Doctor was aware of the pain first, before anything else.

Before he was even quite awake, he became aware of the ache in his muscles that pulsed with the beat of his hearts and the expansion of his lungs, and a deeper, sharper pain in his mind.

The pain nudged at him, forcing him into wakefulness. Groggily, he became aware that he was lying somewhere soft and warm, and clean, which made a nice change, considering that the last few times he'd been awake he'd been somewhere cold and hard and out in the open. He'd been aware that he really needed to get to safety, but couldn't muster up the energy.

He'd known he would probably die. He couldn't bring himself to care.

The fact that his circumstances had changed though did raise the question of how he came to be here, wherever here was. Probably the TARDIS, he realised fuzzily. He'd been all alone, but now the TARDIS was back, hurt and subdued, but back. Funny. He could have sworn he'd lost her. But then, he hadn't exactly been coherent or lucid when he'd staggered out…

His body felt different, unfamiliar, new, and he could vaguely remember regenerating right before he had passed out. The changes felt uncomfortable.

He opened his eyes to see pale hair, and a blur with two dark blobs and a reddish blob arranged in the middle of it.

The Doctor blinked, and narrowed his eyes into an intense focus, and the shape above him clarified into a woman with pale blonde hair and strong dark eyes, looking concerned.

"Hello." She grinned at him with an easy familiarity, looking fond and a little relieved. "How you feeling?"

The Doctor winced deeply at the question, and involuntarily sang through him, agony blazing through behind it. He was instantly lost.

It was the grip on his hand and soothing syllables and the touch on his cheek that brought him out of it.

When he opened his eyes again the woman pulled her hand back from his face, but continued to hold his hand tightly. The feel of it held him there, like an anchor.

"Sorry." She bit her lip. "It was the War, wasn't it?"

The Doctor didn't respond, because he couldn't, and sorrow and worry and tremendous pain flashed across her face, the depth of her emotions greater than made sense.

The Doctor forced himself to think, and to explain this and the way she treated him like someone she'd known forever.

"You haven't met me yet, have you?" he asked, and then frowned, sure that he could have articulated that better, somehow.

The grin she gave him was pleased and full of approval, delighted that he'd got it already.

"Nope. Oh, you're good. I don't meet you for the first time until later than this, for you anyway. Didn't think you'd work it out so quickly."

Her eyes were sparkling like stars, full of pride and affection, and it hurt unexpectedly.

So he closed his eyes, feeling the screaming empty maw opening right up again to pull him down and try to consume his soul with silence, and slipped away back into sleep.

The next time he woke up it was because there was faint singing in his head, beautiful and sad, and he latched onto it desperately.

The song altered in surprise, and changed to a reassuring frequency. It was like space and time and the universe, but somehow personal, filled with feeling. He knew, without having to think about it, that the song was filled with love just for him. It was awing and humbling.

Not too long afterwards the young woman walked in, and the smile on her face was so warm and bright, so like the song, that he realised where it was coming from.

"You're singing," the Doctor said in absolute wonder. "In my head."

The woman frowned in confusion.

"Doctor?"

He didn't understand how a human woman could have a song of time and space running through her head, but it was wondrous and impossible and beautiful all at once, and he sat back and listened to it, wondering how he could possibly deserve this, after everything he's done.

He realised suddenly that the woman had left the room, and looked around in mild alarm – the last thing he wanted was to accidentally upset her and drive her away. But she reappeared a moment later, pushing a tea trolley. There was a silver cover sitting on it, and a pot of tea and two tea cups. There was also a milk jug, but no sugar bowl.

He raised his eyebrows.

"Not a sugar-in-my-tea sort of person this time round, then?"

The woman stopped, a sudden look of deep dismay on her face.

"Oh–" The word she used was both profane and pithy. "I've just spoiled it, haven't I?"

She looked so upset at having taken the chance to discover his new tea preferences from him, that he couldn't help giving her an amused smile.

She smiled back in response, but still looked a little troubled.

"Nah, you've saved me the trouble of having to work it out for myself," the Doctor replied reassuringly. "Lot of trial and error I didn't really want to go through right now." He frowned at the tea trolley. "Don't suppose you know how strong I like my tea, or how much milk I take?"

His companion snorted with laughter, but checked the strength of the tea, before pouring it, and adding a little milk. The Doctor watched attentively for future reference, and accepted the tea gratefully when she passed it to him.

It tasted fantastic, he noted, just the way he liked it.

"Fantastic," he said appreciatively, and then paused to contemplate the word. "Fantastic. Good word."

The woman beamed widely at him and sipped at her own tea.

"When you've finished the tea there's some chicken soup under there for you," she said, nodding at the silver cover.

The Doctor leaned forward and lifted the cover a little, sniffing at the pleasant aroma of the soup.

"Smells great," he said. "Thanks."

For a while there was silence, as he drank his tea before beginning on his soup. By the end of it, he felt a great deal better.

"So," the Doctor asked, watching the human sitting next to him. Her blonde hair was pulled back away from her face with a single clip and cascaded loosely over her shoulders. She wasn't wearing the blue jacket today, he noted, but a loose purple t-shirt he was fairly certain once belonged to Tegan. It looked nice on her. "You've been living in my TARDIS for days, looking after me, putting things in order. I was wondering, do you happen to have a name?"

Her eyes went huge, comically so.

"I can't believe I didn't say," she scolded herself, shaking her head. "Blimey, this life's getting to me." She eyed him warily for a moment, which surprised him; he was under the impression she trusted him greatly. "My name's Rose, Rose Tyler. I don't think it'll mess up continuity to tell you that much."

The Doctor can feel his chagrin writ large on his face for a moment. He hadn't even considered that. Showed how out of it he still was.

"Don't reckon it will," he agreed amiably. "Nice to meet you, Rose Tyler."

She grinned at him, catching the tip of her tongue between her teeth, and he wondered if she knows exactly how engaging that is. Probably, he thought dryly. Women usually do.

"Haven't really had a chance to be up and about," he continued, "so can you tell me how the TARDIS is doing?"

Rose's smile vanished instantly, and she looked worried.

"Not good," she replied truthfully. "She's sort've struggling a bit, with everything. The console room's still a bit of a mess, although I've been working on that, and some of the console's a bit damaged. I think it's coz she doesn't have whatever she used to acting like a power source."

The Doctor felt the blood drain from his face.

"The Eye of Harmony," he whispered in shocked realisation. "It would've been destroyed with… with everything else. She needs a new power source as soon as possible. I don't know how she's still going."

There was a snatch of song in Rose's mind, but it was gone almost as soon as she realised it.

"What about a rift in time and space?" she suggested diffidently. "Where one's closed, I mean. Don't they give off energy?"

For a moment the Doctor just stared at her.

"You, Rose Tyler, are a genius!" he declared. "That is a fantastic idea."

Rose just smiled.

It was hard going, over the next few weeks. The Doctor did his best to wallpaper on a cheerful demeanour, which didn't seem to fool Rose in the least, but the most innocuous of triggers could send him off screaming into the empty vastness of his mind, where the edges were ragged and wrenched away, leaving a void. The void was always there, and if he wasn't careful it would suck him in and make him lost, the way it had when he'd collapsed in regeneration.

Every time it happened, he was drawn out by Rose, the feel of her soft skin against his hand or face, the soft gentle tones of her voice, and by her song, crescendoed into faith and strength and brightness, driving the void away by surrounding him with golden sound.

Rose never seemed to mind, that she had to drag him back out and anchor him to the world, that she was dealing with a gibbering wreck who didn't know what was going on half the time. If anything, she seemed to be glad she was there. He'd wondered a number of times exactly what her relationship to him was, in her past and his future, but didn't dare ponder the question too closely. There was no way he would admit it to himself, but not only was he dependent on Rose, but she was so many fantastic things all wrapped into one that in only a few weeks, he couldn't imagine life without her.

When the Doctor had recovered enough – physically, at least – he set about reconfiguring the TARDIS to run on energy from the Time Vortex.

That in itself took several weeks. Where the TARDIS had once been connected to the Eye of Harmony at her heart, the Vortex now burned. The only thing that the Doctor could think of was that since the Eye of Harmony had now never existed, technically speaking, and yet undoubtedly had, a connection to time and space had replaced it. It wasn't exactly something they'd covered at the Academy; yet another consequence of using the Moment, and there was no way to know how many of those there were.

The problem was that the TARDIS was not designed to have all of Time and Space burning at her heart.

The Doctor had frowned to himself over it. He needed to find a way to fix this, but he wasn't sure how. Equally puzzling was the fact that the TARDIS was apparently unharmed by the new circumstance.

He had peered reluctantly into the TARDIS' heart, steeling himself to look at the Vortex. The last time he had looked at the Vortex directly, when he had gazed through the Untempered Schism into all eternity, he had been terrified, and expected a similar reaction this time.

What he got was a shock. At the centre of the Vortex, burning brighter still, was a figure, standing with legs braced apart and arms held out, as through holding something in place on each side. A concentration of space and time somehow denser than the rest of the Vortex, the figure stood there, impossible. As the Doctor gaped, the indistinct, vaguely-Time Lordian shape turned its head to stare at him with eyes that burned so terribly that the Doctor was forced to shut his eyes in pain.

He had shut the TARDIS panel hastily, feeling immensely shaken. Nothing in Time Lord lore could explain that figure of Time and Space, that personification at the centre of all of space and time. The Doctor had a feeling that it was new, and that its existence was somehow tied into the way he'd ended the war, like so many other things were. The… being, didn't seem to be hostile, at least; the fact that it seemed to be protecting the TARDIS was proof of that. The Doctor decided that there was nothing that he could do about the entity, and no apparent reason to worry, but its existence had disturbed him, all the same.

He didn't look into the TARDIS' heart again, but continued reconfiguring the TARDIS power systems, and did his best to push the incident to the back of his mind.

**END CHAPTER**


End file.
